ooof

The subject pretty much says it all. It has been a busy week and an even busier two days... yesterday and today was the Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference. I wasn't sure if it would be all that useful or relevant for my work, but I figured I should go anyway. Man I am glad I did! It was excellent; even though the period talked about was all at least 50 years ahead of my work, there was a ton of useful stuff. I haven't been to a real, professional conference before, and the level of engagement was just fascinating. Plus some of the Big Names in theatre studies were there, and I got to talk to them. (John P. Harrington, who I've cited a billion times, was interested in my research and made a point to talk to me a couple times! *nerdysquee*) Also, my favorite professor from the MA, Patrick Lonergan, just had a new book come out, and Lionel did the speech to launch it. Which was fun. And, of course, the free food... NUIG really does a good job with the food and wine at its functions. We got wine and champagne and finger food at the book launch last night, and really delicious sandwiches today for lunch. (I had a sandwich that had brie, fresh basil, and some sort of pancetta! Delicious!)

It was fun to socialize a bit with Lionel and Patrick, really. Patrick especially is hilarious, because he's a huge nerd-- in one of his speeches about the conference history, he managed to reference both Harry Potter and Star Wars. (Last year in the MA, he made frequent references to Star Wars, Star Trek, and Buffy. In an Irish Literature class.) Also, it's just really nice to talk to academics, because I know I'm not boring them when I talk about my research!

It's funny, really... the go-to topic in academic smalltalk is "how is your research going?" I got asked that SO MANY times in the last couple days. Though Nessa complimented my hair first... and Lionel complimented my shoes, which was almost kind of weird. Anyway last night I went out for drinks with a PhD from University College Dublin, and I was up too late and slept very poorly, and consequently have felt tired all day. The conference folks are going out for drinks tonight, and I feel like I should go-- if only for a chance to drink with Patrick Lonergan!-- but I'm not sure I'll be able to make it out. I'm pretty exhausted.